The present invention relates to a knowledge base management method and system for use in an expert system building tool or the like.
In an expert system building tool for structuring an expert system with a high efficiency, as the knowledge base becomes large in scale, there has been an increased need for a knowledge base management system for effectively storing and utilizing modules of knowledge the module of knowledge forming the unit of knowledge which constitutes the knowledge base. The module of knowledge may include a rule, such as an "if then" clause, a frame which represents the fact of a proposition, an object, or a formula of predictive logic which is representative of a method.
One known knowledge base management system is the a system browser in the Smalltalk-80 system disclosed in "Smalltalk-80 The Interactive Programming Environment", Japanese version, pp. 144-145. In the Smalltalk-80 system, a module of knowledge can be stored and managed with a structure or form most suitable for a given knowledge representing language (e.g. programming language). However, the Smalltalk-80 system lacks the extensibility and flexibility for use with a different programming languages, since the structure of the knowledge base as well as information indicative of the relation between modules of knowledge depending on a given programming language (for example, the relation in inheritance or succession between one and another modules of knowledge) are subordinate to the system, or since the description of knowledge must be made by a top-down method because only one programming language is fixedly employed.